


here i confess my doubt

by SeasideFantasties



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: (but needed ones), (please feel free to squint), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, fitzier if you squint, i have no idea how that's different from regular hurt/comfort but let's just go with it, i still don't know how to tag things on here help me, painful confessions, submitting to the terrifying ordeal of being known? i guess????, talking about feelings, two Victorian captains talking about the other's trauma and being sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-07 02:29:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20301964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeasideFantasties/pseuds/SeasideFantasties
Summary: The cold and barren nature of the Arctic is adept at revealing secrets that one would rather keep hidden.The subject of James Fitzjames's heritage is one such secret.(aka self-indulgent cairn walk scene from James's POV)





	here i confess my doubt

They’ve done their duty that is asked of them, walking miles across the barren rock to add to the note that Lieutenant Gore had left so long ago. A part of James still wants to scoff at the words written there before their own addition was added, a part that has been beaten down and run ragged by the hopelessness of their situation and the growing severity of his own illness as the days pass. _All well_. What fools they had been, even then, to think that any of this would be a triumph. Even while trapped firmly in the grasp of the ice that seemed determined to try and tear the ships asunder at every step of the way, most of the men had firmly believed that the ice would surely open up sooner or later and permit them passage, that any damage to the framework of the ships would be easily repairable, that the Passage would be found and the glory of the British Empire secured with it. James was among those men, once, and it deeply shames him to think of it now. If he’d known- if he’d had even the slightest _inkling _of what was to come- he thinks that he would have firmly taken Francis’s side during the command meeting that seems eons ago now, insisting that the senior and more experienced captain was right about the dangers of the pack ice ahead. Instead he and most of the other commanding officers had considered themselves to know more than a veteran of Arctic exploration about the risks involved, and now it is here that they find themselves, in this vast nothingness that seems to be teeming with dangers. Even now, without the ice trying to crush them to splinters, they are still plagued wherever they go, if not by that _thing_ out on the ice than by disease and hopelessness.

Before, James had been so set in the notion that none of this had been his fault, but after the fiery disaster that was Carnivale and after discovering his own illness, he’s not quite sure anymore. Perhaps even he has had some small part in the terrors they face now, in all his hubris, and it makes him shudder to think of it.

He can only hope that the inevitable rescue parties that are sent out arrive soon enough to find the note and to send some semblance of aid, or that they make it to the relative safety of Back’s Fish River as is planned. Their numbers are already so vastly depleted- to the point where it sometimes feels that every time he turns around, there is a new casualty to attend to, a new member of their party to mourn, and more and more men are becoming stricken with illness with every passing day. James himself has been hiding the true extent of his own affliction from everyone but Bridgens and Francis- the two men that he finds himself unable to hide much of anything from, no matter how valiantly he tries- and though as of yet it is still in the beginning stages, he knows enough of scurvy and its symptoms to know what is to come, and the aches and pains in his muscles (among other more insidious symptoms) make him shudder to think of how the long walk ahead of them will ultimately affect him. Already the scarce few miles to the cairn and back feel like they stretch on for eternity, and every step sends a dull throb of pain through his muscles that he tries to ignore with varying levels of success.

James isn’t sure why he starts bringing up the symptoms to Francis as they walk, as part of him wants to avoid talk of the disease that plagues him and the fate that will surely befall him should they not make their way to safety in time. He’s never allowed himself to feel fear over the prospect of death before- not in China, when the musket ball was removed from his shoulder without any form of anesthetic and he was forced to stifle any exclamations of pain that left his mouth, not during the entirety of the Opium War, and not even when they had been frozen in and relentlessly dogged by the creature out on the ice. He might have allowed himself a small moment of trepidation while hearing Blanky’s muffled howls of pain from the sick bay during the amputation of his festering leg, but he’ll deny such a fact to anyone who bothers to ask. But after the evening when he had first glanced up to see blood beading at the edge of his scalp, the dread has snuck in, silent and nearly undetectable but sinking its jagged claws into him all the same. Before, he’d chalked up his ability to survive even the most hostile of situations to sheer luck, or some divine intervention looking out for him, but in this utterly inhospitable environment there is no hope to be found, and every prayer directed towards any deity that might have been bothering to listen has fallen on deaf ears thus far. He’ll either die here, or narrowly be saved at the last possible minute, and the scales look to be heavily tipped towards the first option at the present moment. He’s tried not to dwell on it, tried- for once in his long life- to not look in the few mirrors provided to the men any longer than necessary while attending to his morning and evening routines, not wanting to see the degree to which his body has already deteriorated. Every time that his memory experiences some kind of lapse, every time that he tastes iron in his mouth whenever he dares to smile, the fear grips his heart like a vice, reminding him all too well that his mortality has finally caught up to him.

In truth, perhaps it’s the same fear that compels himself to reveal what has plagued him for all these months to Francis- fear of no one else knowing his plight, of dying alone in this inhospitable place, unknown and unacknowledged despite how hard he has fought to be otherwise. By sharing the dark thoughts that constantly cloud his mind, James reasons, he might be able to find someone who shares the same concerns that he does, might be able to shoulder some of their concerns as they will shoulder his. And beyond that, he and Francis have grown inexplicably closer as the months draw on, almost like brothers in everything but blood with how often they had confided in each other as of late. If someone had drawn James aside even a scarce year or so ago and told him that he would form a close bond with what he had first seen as a stoic, uncaring, and utterly irresponsible individual, he thinks that he would have politely rebuked them, if not finding himself so bold as to laugh in their face at such a ridiculous declaration. But the cold and ice demands that a certain kind of brotherhood should arise between the men trapped within it, and James himself is no different. He doubts he would tell even Dundy about the depths of his fear in this moment, as close as he is to the other man after their time serving together on the _Clio. _Somehow, Francis is different. Somehow, something about their relationship has changed enough that James feels he can bare himself to him.

And so they find themselves, James sharing tales of his past without any of the usual embellishments that he would tack on were they sitting around an officer’s table instead of walking through the ice and rocks. This place has taken even that luxury away from them.

“To think these few miles were an effort,” he grunts out, shaking his head wryly while trying yet again to ignore the persistent throb in his limbs. “You know, after the war, I asked permission to walk home to London from Nanking, through Tibet and Russia. I wanted to try my hand at being an overland spy.” He almost smiles at the memory- how young and foolish he was, and how physically able he had been compared to the wispy shadow of himself that he is now- before continuing. “I was the best walker in the service. I told Sir John Barrow that once without blushing.” Now he _does _smile, reveling in the laugh that the statement draws from Francis while adding his own dry chuckle to the mix. The smile becomes hidden a moment later as he tastes iron in his mouth, some part of him still wanting to preserve what little dignity he still has left, but the merriment still remains. He distinctly remembers writing to the younger John Barrow with his ridiculously ambitious proposal of walking to the North Pole- _I want to make a party of good walkers and reach the Pole itself, only going in the winter at night instead of the summer at day as Parry did and in consequence found the ice melting and drifting him south_\- and it almost makes a hot wave of shame rise up within him as he dwells on it now. The letter shows just how naïve he had been, to think that walking across the ice to the Pole would be as easy as taking a stroll through London on a warm summer’s day. To think that he knew anything of just how hard it was to survive in the polar wastes, or any of the terrors that the ice could hold.

Their time spent in the ice here has showed him just how wrong he was, on both accounts.

“I was quick to want the world rid of its fools an hour ago. I forget sometimes how much an exemplar I am among them,” he says instead of dwelling on the shame, trying to make light of his own faults as he has done so many times in the past. Trying to make light of the fact that all of the duties he has ever undertaken, all of the wild adventures that he ever found himself being a part of, were all to draw attention away from what he still sees as his own shortcomings. Surely if he constructs a mask carefully and with enough materials, it will be far too strong for anyone to ever pull back, to ever see the dark depths that hide beneath the façade of being a perfect English gentleman that he has always been careful to cultivate. It is a joke, a folly. It always has been, and he expects Francis to see it no differently.

He’s very nearly floored when the _Terror_ captain instead purses his lips thoughtfully, mumbling out his words after a beat of silence. “That’s not how I see you.”

James’s breath almost stutters in his throat as he comes to a stop, searching the elder man’s face for any sign that such words were meant in jest, as a part of him wants oh so desperately for them to be. When no sign of such a thing is quick to show itself, he finds himself letting out an exhale much deeper and shakier than he would like it to be, words forming on the tip of his tongue only to wither and die a split second later. _And how **do** you see me? _He almost wants to ask the question, almost wants to form the words, and only a great deal of self-control keeps him from doing so. It’s enough to make him wonder, however- even from the beginning, a part of him had realized that Francis had always been able to see right through his self-aggrandizing bluster, had always been able to at least partially realize that there was another side to James hidden behind what he showed everyone else. _One glance from him and I have to remind myself that I’m not a fraud_, he had told Sir John once, what seems like eons ago now, and there had been more truth in that statement than he had dared to admit at the time. Francis’s gaze had always felt like it was peeling back the layers that he had carefully built up over the years, exposing him for the liar that he truly was, and he had hated Francis for it among so many other reasons.

But Francis has changed so much, since then. Not only has he put the vice of drink aside for the good of the men- and James hadn’t even seen the full extent of the other captain’s illness during that time, hadn’t known how much danger Francis was in until he had managed to piece together the full story from what little whisperings he had gathered from Jopson and the rest- but Francis had been the first one to come to him after the disaster that Carnivale had been, after the realization that it was his own doing that had led to the demise of so many had snuck in and wrapped his heart in shackles of fear and shame. Francis had been the one to reassure him that it was not his fault for not seeing the depths of Stanley’s madness, that he had acted as courageously as he could have under the circumstances, and it had absolutely floored James to think that he could be met with such support from a man who he had once so utterly detested. If he’d been in a sounder state of mind, he would have felt deep shame over his words from their earlier argument- how Francis was becoming the worst kind of first as well, with the direction that his daily behaviors had turned in. The Carnivale had revealed, first and foremost, that Francis was precisely the kind of first that the men all needed in order to survive in this wasteland. It was he who was the failure, both throughout his life and here on the ice.

He wasn’t some great war hero, or some dashing young officer that had been appointed to this expedition out of an appreciation for all the daring exploits that he had taken a part in, and he somehow wants Francis to understand this in addition to his fears over his illness. And so James speaks again after a beat of silence, trying his best to hide his distaste over the fact that he needs to reveal such information in the first place. “Francis, do you know how I was appointed to this expedition?” When Francis gives a small shake of his head in response, he continues, though the words almost feel like a betrayal as he says them, and he thinks of how Sir John Barrow would be spitting like an angry cat at this moment if he knew that James was confessing the one secret that they both had tried so hard to keep hidden. “I saved Sir John Barrow’s son from a scandal. By chance, in Signapore. I paid…to have a very base matter settled, that would have blackened the Barrows’ name, and the Admiralty’s by association.” He does not dare speak of what said scandal truly was, for just saying the words feels like enough of a bridge burning between he and the man who had done so much for him in the first place, but James hopes that his expression will convey the solemnity of the situation more than anything else. “As soon as I returned to London, I was promoted to Commander. And when the Admiralty announced that there would be another attempt at the Passage…well, I only had to say the word.”

It reminds him of how much of a fool he was, to think that just by paying to keep certain parties silent he could have weaseled his way onto this expedition without so much as a word of protest from anyone else, in much the same way that he was able to integrate himself into the service in the first place. Throughout his entire life, he has lied and disguised himself and sometimes even bribed to get to where he wanted to be, and as he stands before Francis he almost wants the _Terror_ captain to feel the same level of disgust over it that he himself does. He wants to feel validated in how much of a fool he thinks of himself as, then, and if only Francis would agree then perhaps there was a small chance that he could finally find peace with the entire situation.

Instead there’s a beat as Francis passes the canteen that they share back to James, muttering quietly. “That only makes you a man.”

James wants to scream, in that moment, wants to hurl the canteen down and insist that Francis shouldn’t think of him so highly, that he’s nothing more than a fraud who has all but bribed himself onto this expedition in order to secure a rank and a place among the most praised members of the Admiralty (if such a thing is even possible anymore, after all that has happened). Instead he simply takes the canteen in a silent show of resignation, trying to soothe his thoughts by inwardly arguing that it’s nothing he hasn’t heard before. How he’s a hero, a good man. The kind of praise that comes from putting blind faith in someone greater than oneself, rather than bothering to look beneath the surface and see just how scummy the depths were. “Does it?” he says softly, bringing the canteen to his lips and trying not to wince at how even the act of swallowing aggravates the blisters that have formed in his mouth.

“What you describe is a surplus of political luck, hm?” Francis draws closer to give him a brotherly pat on the arm then, and it takes all of James’s self-control to not flinch away from the touch. “Not a dearth of courage.” And the senior captain clearly intends to leave it at that, trudging away across the rocks, but as James stands there and shakes his head wryly he suddenly and bitterly thinks that he needs to make Francis _understand_, because he clearly doesn’t know anything of why James isn’t someone worth praising, isn’t someone worth much of anything by the Admiralty’s standards. He needs to have one person that doesn’t blindly worship him as a hero, who he can allow to look beneath the surface and draw their own conclusions about how fit he is to even be here in the first place, and before he can even think to stop himself James is opening his mouth and speaking words that he desperately wishes he could take back an instant later.

“I’m a fake, brother.”

_Idiot idiot **idiot**_. The words reverberate around his skull like a mantra as Francis twists back to view him, any further words that he wanted to say turning to ash in his throat as his eyes take a sudden interest in the stones beneath his feet. He treads dangerously close to revealing the secret that he’s seldom revealed to anybody else- not even Dundy, for how close the two of them had grown, was privy to the information, for a part of James had always feared that even though Dundy seemed trustworthy, one slip of the tongue could lead to his lineage being discovered and all his accomplishments within the Admiralty being deemed null and void. Higher-ranking officials like Francis are who he’s avoided telling the most, fear of the consequences keeping him at a constant state of walking on eggshells should any mention at all of his family happen to come up during conversations. He has no reason to believe that Francis won’t take the soonest opportunity that he can to pass such information onto the Admiralty, despite the bond that has grown between them, should even the smallest sliver of hope that they can make it out of this vast barrenness still exist. Nobody but the Conninghams have ever spoken to him about Gambier or what he had done in order to bring shame down upon his head, and James has kept the secret even closer to himself in telling nobody about it, not even his closest circle of friends. He was born out of a mistake- out of a _series_ of mistakes- and mistakes are something that should be kept under lock and key, else they completely ruin whoever was the unfortunate party to make one.

But as Francis simply points his walking stick, simply speaks with such confidence that James can do nothing to hide from it- “I challenge any biographer to tally up your acts of valor and _then_ call you a fake,” he says, and there’s absolutely no jest or ire in the tone, just admiration and defiance that anybody would refer to James as such, yet another sign of how much they’ve bonded over the past few months- he finds himself trying to swallow his fear, trying to gather enough courage to confess the truths that he’s kept hidden for so long, because Francis doesn’t understand and he so desperately _needs_ him to. He needs to understand why James has always been quick to dominate the officer’s meetings with tales of his own exploits, or for that matter any conversation between the higher ranking officers on this expedition, needs to know why James is always the one to jump at the call regardless of whatever danger he might bring to himself by doing so. Even if it serves to drive Francis away from him and irreparably burn the bridge that they have only just started to build, even if it will mean the death of his career should they ever return to London, he has to tell someone the truth, has to let go of that which has been burdening him for so long before the chance to do so disappears altogether. 

“Francis-“ He begins, and then stops, because for once James has no idea of how to continue, of how to force himself to step over the precipice that looms before him to reach the other side. The full reality of what he’s about to confess to has seemingly dawned on him, and it’s all he can do to clear his throat and forge onwards, even though a large part of his brain seems determined to ring the alarm bells at every step of the way. “A man like me…will do amazing things to be seen.” He shakes his head wryly as he thinks back on the deeds in question, thinks back on how they will all be for nothing should Francis ultimately decide to take offense at the secrets about to be laid bare, and then continues. “My…my father-“ The words almost taste like ash in his mouth as he pauses again, feeling as though he’s somehow condemning a father that he’s never even met by speaking them, wondering how his old shipmates would perceive him if they could possibly see him now. James Fitzjames, the hero of the Opium War, the man who was never lost for words, now tripping over his own tongue and blindly stumbling about as though he was trying to avoid obstacles in a darkened room. How they would laugh. How quickly that laughter would turn to mockery.

_None of that matters now_, a voice that sounds suspiciously like William’s whispers in his head. _It doesn’t matter what they think, only what the man before you will. _And in any case, it’s not as if he has much else to lose, with the hell that this place has already been quick to put him through. So he continues.

“My father was…a ridiculous man. Ruined himself with debts. He was a consul general in Brazil, and…he and his wife would mix with all the wealthy Portuguese families in exile there.” He remembers the thinly-veiled shame on the faces of the Conninghams when they had first told him the story, and how he had resolved to not be the disappointment that his father had been, to never fall victim to the same kind of idiocy that had led to Gambier’s downfall. What a lot of good that resolve has done him now. “My mother…was probably from one of those families. I was never told more.” He can somehow sense Francis arriving to the hidden meaning of such words before he himself can say them, but he voices them anyway, dripping with every ounce of shame that he’s ever felt over the reality of his lot in life. “I was born out of an affair.”

He doesn’t look to see Francis’s reaction to such words. He somehow doesn’t want to. The secret that he has tried to keep hidden for so long has been laid bare, and no further words that he can say will ever soothe the wound that has been so violently torn open. But it still doesn’t explain the half of why he has done all the things he has done, and so he pushes onward, even as the familiar prick of tears enters his eyes and even as a part of him wants oh so desperately for his mouth to clamp shut around the words that could so easily damn him. “My father’s cousins had to find people to raise me.” And he remembers now, so very vividly, how he had been passed from family member to family member as though he was nothing more than a bit of currency to be thrown away at their leisure, how he had grown so used to adults that came into his life not wanting him that he had immediately assumed that the Conninghams would be rid of him once their new son was born, how Louisa had pulled him aside and reassured him that nothing he could ever do would be enough for them to cast him aside. How he had cherished his time at the house on Rose Hill, but even so had nights when he would lie awake, staring at the ceiling and wondering what he could have possibly done so wrong that his entire birth family wanted nothing to do with him.

“My name…even my name was made up for my baptism.” Here he stops, still avoiding meeting Francis’s gaze head-on while he practically sneers out the name that he has detested for so long, the name that only serves to make even more of a mockery out of the circumstances of his birth. The name that follows him wherever he goes, like some kind of twisted mantra ringing in his ears, to remind him that no matter how many heroic exploits he pulls off, he’ll never truly be able to escape his upbringing. “James Fitzjames. Like a bad pun. I’m not even fully English.” The admission that he’s tried so hard to keep from speaking is finally out in the open, and it drives home with all the weight of someone having punched him in the stomach, or the force of that damned musket ball all those years ago. The tears renew their stinging at the edges of his gaze as he stands there, and it takes nearly all of his strength to raise his gaze to meet the senior captain’s in that moment, afraid of what emotions he’ll find warring within those startlingly blue eyes, afraid of what Francis will do with the information that James has kept close to his chest for so long.

Instead of seeing anger, however, he’s surprised to find that Francis’s face is soft, sad and almost sympathetic as he stands there. He doesn’t speak the words, but his expression seems to convey them all the same: _I know how you feel. _Because Francis, too, has been looked down upon for his heritage, though not to the same extent that James likely would be. Francis knows what kind of consequences revealing that you weren’t fully English could have, knows what it’s like to be denied command and prestige that should by all accounts be his first and foremost. James has gathered as much from conversations that they’ve shared about the matter of appointing the officers to the Expedition, back when they had still been mourning the loss of all the good men at Carnivale, as much as Francis was clearly reluctant to discuss such matters. Francis may well be the only man on this expedition that truly knows how James feels in this moment, and his soft words that follow the expression a moment later seem to confirm that thought. “I didn’t know any of that.”

_You had no cause to know_, he wants to say. _I was afraid_, he wants to say, _because you detested me so greatly, and you saw through my façade when no one else did, and I wondered what you would do with the information. _He even wants to throw out that they hadn’t been friends before, but instead James stands there in silence for a moment, hardly knowing what to do next, floundering about without a clear sense of direction for quite possibly the first time since his childhood. Dare he hope that Francis understands the depths of his shame, and understands where this sudden confession was coming from? Dare he hope that the _Terror_ captain realized that he was so utterly afraid of dying alone, without anyone knowing the truth about him and being able to see beyond his heroic deeds, that he had been shouldering this burden for so long without ever having the chance to alleviate it? Dare he hope that Francis could heal the wound that the Conninghams had somehow never managed to?

James had cherished his time at the house on Rose Hill- he does even now- and the Conninghams had practically become a second family to him. They had given him support, love, and understanding. And yet they had never given him closure into the fact that he was born as an illegitimate bastard, had never outright said that such a fact didn’t make him who he was. They had loved him in spite of it, but a James that was much younger and less astute had taken that to mean that his being illegitimate was still a fault, was still something that needed to be kept under lock and key lest it be the ruin of him the way it had been the ruin of his father, and it has left him with a wound that has never quite managed to seal properly. If Francis can possibly take that wound and heal it the way it was supposed to-

But Francis is still a higher-ranking officer. Francis can still very well turn out to be an enemy in this scenario, and James cannot afford to let his guard down so easily, cannot afford to think that Francis truly understands based on a few flimsy threads of evidence. So instead of sagging in relief as a part of him wants oh so desperately to do, he simply speaks a further set of words after another beat of silence, trying for a casual tone but likely failing miserably. “I’ve never…said it out loud, before now.” A moment later, he picks his way across the rocks and back to Francis’s side, but with much less confidence than he had before, gingerly and hesitantly. If Francis asks, he’ll chalk it up to the scurvy aggravating his muscles, as it is still doing- but the comparison to an abused dog waiting to be stricken doesn’t escape James’s mind as he walks onward. A part of him is still expecting hostility, still expecting that at any moment Francis will finally give in to the shock and anger that’s no doubt coursing through his system and call James out for the liar and fraud that he truly is.

As with most awkward social scenarios in his life, he turns to further conversation in an attempt to wrench his mind away from such dark thoughts- but his mind is too burdened by the gravity of what he’s just confessed to allow him to think of much else, and so it is that even more damning words escape his lips as the two of them walk. “I always felt I deserved more. So I went to sea, aged twelve-“ James distinctly remembers how he’d told the officials in question that he was fourteen, how they’d never thought to question such information coming from the mouth of a babe and simply signed him on to duty at the soonest opportunity. Just another lie to save his own skin, in the grand scheme of things. “-and I began to build myself a great…_gilded_ life. That didn’t…humiliate me to live.” The edge that he puts on the words will do enough to convey his distaste over the situation, he thinks, his distaste that all of his accomplishments and all of the awards that have ever been assigned to him are ultimately nothing more than useless trophies- pleasing to look at, but worth nothing in the grand scheme of things. “So all those stories…that you would have my biographer tally as courage-“ Here he turns to Francis again, feeling the shame over the words that Francis had said scarce moments earlier well up inside of him again and just barely being able to keep it at bay. “It’s all vanity.” He hates to admit it to himself, now, but sooner or later James has to face the truth that everything he’s done in the Admiralty has only been to catch the eyes of his superiors, catch the eyes of someone who might be able to reward him for such efforts and thus keep them from looking at the more unsavory aspects of his life. He’s known that he would have to confess to such a sin sooner or later.

He had never considered that it would take slowly dying of illness in a frozen wasteland for him to do so.

“Always has been,” he continues, his voice losing its strength the longer he goes on, the longer that he confesses more and more of his shame. “And we are at the end of vanity.” He hears how his voice trembles over the words, but he cannot bring himself to care. He is dying, he is dying and alone and _afraid, _for quite possibly the first time in his life, and more than that he’s tired of having to constantly hide the truth from everyone around him. If unburdening himself is what it takes for the wound that’s been slowly growing more and more jagged, festering with every year that passes, to finally begin healing itself, then so be it. At least if Francis turns away from him now, at least if he decides to tell the rest of the men in some fit of hatred, James can die knowing that he’s finally relieved himself of the weight he has been carrying on his shoulders for longer than he can take.

So heavy and flurried are his thoughts that for a moment James forgets to pay any kind of attention to Francis, so much so that when Francis suddenly drives his walking stick into the ground and claps his arm around James’s shoulder, he instinctively startles, irrationally expecting the situation to come to blows somehow. Instead, when he dares to meet Francis’s eyes, he finds them filled with so much understanding and _passion_ that it nearly takes his breath away, and it’s all he can do to stand there and listen as Francis speaks- because if the anger in the elder man’s gaze is not directed at _him_, then who is its true subject?

“Then you are free. Hmm?” James hears the words, but he can hardly register them past the rushing of blood in his ears, the way that he both does and doesn’t want to believe the words as Francis says them. “Mine your courage from a different lode now.” The hold goes higher now, clasped about his shoulders in such a brotherly and supportive way that it almost makes him want to weep, almost makes him want to sag into the touch as his brain starts to fully comprehend the meaning behind the words. “Friendship. Brotherhood.” And if there was any doubt that Francis’s words were genuine, that they were meant in earnest and not out of some cruel jest, it’s banished the instant he looks into the _Terror_ captain’s eyes again, the instant James forces himself to actually read the emotions that are shown there. The only anger that he can see is seemingly directed towards those who have beaten the belief that he was lesser into him his entire life- beyond that there is support, and understanding, and out of all the reactions that James had been expecting to his confession, he is woefully unprepared for this one. Woefully unprepared for how much he has _needed_ to hear these words, all his life, and wondering why no one had bothered to say them sooner. Wondering what he can possibly say in response to such a powerful validation of what he’s been feeling.

“Are we brothers, Francis?” he finally manages, his breathing coming out ragged as he gazes at Francis, gazes at the man who has so quickly gone from his rival to his most treasured friend. “I would like that very much.” The words are wavering, and the tears that he’s held back for so long are quick to start trailing down the lines in his face, but James cannot bring himself to care about how undignified he looks in that moment, because Francis has taken the gaping wound that has been left in his heart this entire time and begun to close it. Francis is here by his side, Francis _sees_ him- sees him for who he is, and doesn’t judge him for it, instead supporting him all the more fiercely- and the fact alone is worth more than any medal or trophy he’s ever earned. It blooms in his chest like some rare specimen of flower, making him smile at Francis as the older man claps him on the back in one last show of solidarity, and as they begin their walk anew the air around them suddenly feels very warm indeed, in spite of how far north their current climate is.

The warmth persists, all the way back to the camp. And later, when he has the creature that has been stalking them all this time within his line of fire, when mere feet lie between him and a gaping maw full of teeth, James will think back on Francis’s words, and he will feel no fear at all. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is very self-indulgent because I looked through the entirety of the Terror tag on here, realized that no one had done the cairn walk scene from James's POV yet, and my little gremlin brain took it upon itself to go "challenge accepted" and write a fic. A fic that was supposed to be a short character study but ended up taking up nine pages worth of a Word document and also took me nearly a month to write. It be like that sometimes, I suppose. 
> 
> Most of the historical notes- including James's childhood at Rose Hill, the letter that he wrote to the younger John Barrow about the possibility of taking an overland party to try and find the North Pole, and the mentions of his time serving in the Opium War- come either directly from the show or from the Battersby biography, which I absolutely recommend if your goal is ever to write a James POV story. The detail about James thinking that the Conninghams were going to get rid of him once William was born comes from a letter written by Louisa Conningham, as meganphntmgrl (who I'm pretty sure is like, the authority on Fitzjames at this point) revealed once- it was in the footnotes that Battersby planned to add to the biography at some point, but obviously Battersby kind of suffered author existence failure before then and never got around to it. The actual source of the letter and these other footnotes appears to have been deleted from where it existed on the web, so apologies for not being able to provide a good source for it! 
> 
> Much thanks to radiojamming, theiceandbones, and keyofmgy for reading this over and supporting me when I was not sure at all of whether this actually made any kind of coherent sense or not- you guys are the best!


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